CHESTER — The Philadelphia Union’s midfield has undergone a week of change that will impact the group on the field Saturday at Subaru Park in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals.
Danley Jean Jacques, signed last week from French club FC Metz, is officially available.
Sanders Ngabo is not, the 20-year-old having been transferred to AC Horsens in his native Denmark on Thursday after 17 Union II appearances but nothing for the first team.
He becomes the third foreign midfielder signing in as many years — behind Matej Oravec and Richard Odada, with defender Olwethu Makhanya threatening to join — not to play a single MLS minute.
And Jose Martinez is in pre-transfer limbo, with a potentially big move on the way.
Reports out of South America on Tuesday, hours after the Union’s 4-2 win over FC Cincinnati in which Martinez went 90 minutes, indicate he is close to a move to Brazilian club Corinthians. Martinez trained to the side Friday and won’t play against Mexican club Mazatlan on Saturday night (7:30, AppleTV).
“There’s truth to the reports,” manager Jim Curtin said Friday. “Things aren’t finalized yet, so I’m not able to officially comment, but there is some momentum in that area.”
Reports cite a rumored $2 million fee for Martinez, a big return for the 30-year-old who the Union signed out of Venezuela for a reported $300,000 in 2020. The combative midfielder has played 108 leagues games plus 10 in the MLS Cup playoffs, made the All-Star Game in 2023 and has cemented cult hero status.
All 32 of his Venezuela caps have been earned with the Union, and his profile rose at Copa America this summer to make a move more possible.
Corinthians is a big club, a seven-time champion of Brazil, last in 2017, though it has fallen from the heights of winning Copa Libertadores and the FIFA Club World Cup in 2012, the latter for a second time.
Martinez won’t help the Union this week, though. They are in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals for the second straight year, LAFC the only other club who can say that.
A win over Mazatlan would guarantee them two more games, starting with a semifinal against the winner of Columbus and New York City FC. They would visit the Crew and host NYCFC.
On the western half of the bracket, Club America takes on Colorado, while LAFC and Seattle square off. The Union would likely host any of them in a final, with America as the only team seeded ahead of them but as a Mexican club, their ability to host at an American hub city is to be determined.
There is a third-place game, with the top three earning berths to next year’s CONCACAF Champions Cup. (America has already achieved that by winning the 2023 Apertura tournament.) A win Saturday from either the Union or Columbus would force a postponement of their Aug. 24 meeting in Leagues Cup, causing a fixture backlog for both.
The Union last year beat Mexican club Queretaro in the quarters, got pounded by Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in the semifinals and beat Monterrey, which had already qualified for CCC, for third.
The effort took a lot out of them, entering Leagues Cup in third place in the East and closing the season 3-2-6 to finish fourth. Sitting 10th in the East this year, they can hardly afford to be just OK when MLS resumes.
“The reality is, if we win this game, we’re going to wind up playing seven additional Leagues Cup games like we played last year,” Curtin said. “Those elimination games are do-or-die, and they’re great tests for you for the final stretch of the regular season and then hopefully the playoffs. So we want to play as many games as possible. We want to go as far as possible.”
The Union have gotten back on track via the competition.
The club went 1-10-6 over a hellish stretch of more than three months, through injuries and international departures, before back-to-back wins in mid-July. In Leagues Cup, they’re 3-0-1, with three results at home and an impressive win over last year’s Supporters’ Shield winners Cincinnati.
The draw, which the Union lost in penalty kicks, was to Cruz Azul, which was tipped in PKs by Mazatlan on Tuesday. That’s a significant upset, Cruz Azul having finished second in the Liga MX Clausura and Mazatlan 14th.
“I think we feel definitely pretty good,” midfielder Leon Flach said. “I think we also showed in the league, even when we lost that we are in a good way, but we were just missing out on results. But think we take a lot of momentum, especially right now, from the Leagues Cup into the league.”
Mazatlan makes the Union’s path to getting something from Leagues Cup more straightforward. Two wins gets them to the Champions League/Cup for the fourth time in five years. Three wins puts a second trophy in the cabinet.
The price for either, though, could be steep. But Curtin will reckon with that at a later date.
“Team health is really, really critical,” he said. “Peaking at the right time is really critical. In our last six performances, our group has done an incredible job. Every player has contributed, whether it’s as a starter, whether it’s for 30 minutes, whether it’s for one minute to close out the game, everybody’s kind of embraced their role. But you see the fine margins and the fine lines when you maybe have a guy get transferred or a guy gets injured or an international call-up, the squads can get thin really fast. So that’s something you do want to guard against.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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